Today in Mark Steyn blows a cockroach

The West’s rivals do not think like this . . The Daily Telegraph in London reported this week that the Chinese have just signed a deal to lease five percent of Ukraine (or an area about the size of Belgium) to grow crops and raise pigs on . . Beijing thinks the half-millennium blip of Euro-American dominance is coming to an end and the world is returning to its natural state of Chinese preeminence. The West assumes it can endure as a kind of upscale boutique unaffected by the changes beyond. Like, say, the frozen-yogurt shop at the Westgate mall in Nairobi — until last weekend.

Zing. Or like, say, a security brokerage in the World Trade Center. Hiyoooo…

China’s Ukraine deal may sound kinda wacky, but the People’s Republic consumes about 20 percent of the world’s food yet has (thanks to rapid industrialization) only 9 percent of its farmland. As Big Government solutions go, renting 5 percent of a sovereign nation to use as your vegetable garden and pig farm is a comparatively straightforward answer to the problem at hand. By contrast, try explaining American “health” “care” “reform” to the Chinese: You could rent the entire Ukraine for about 3 percent of the cost of Obamacare, and what does it solve?

Inflammation of the factoid? Fracture of the fib-you-lie? Death is a phantom menace, apparently. Meanwhile look at all those Chinese people eating succulent pork ribs. If that isn’t testament to the yellow horde’s supremacy, I don’t know what is.

Apropos of nothing, China spends around $340 billion annually on healthcare. The U.S. government’s expenditure on Obamacare in 2014 will skyrocket to about $110 billion. Remember when your second grade teacher warned you not to try to count to infinity? That’s how dumb Mark Steyn is.